


Always Greener

by lyonet



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff, Meet-Cute, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-23
Updated: 2016-09-23
Packaged: 2018-08-16 22:56:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8120800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyonet/pseuds/lyonet
Summary: In which Rey fixes other people’s cars, handsome strangers buy an extraordinary number of flowers and Phasma really needs to find a new job.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lady_ragnell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_ragnell/gifts), [Ghostcat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostcat/gifts).



Every morning when Rey wakes up and remembers she’s going to spend all day in a shop full of flowers, it still feels like a dream. She grew up in the desert; there’s an unwilling love for that landscape ingrained into her sense memory, but it’s green and growing things that fill her with a quiet, giddy joy, and now she gets to work around them _every day._

Her boss Maz used to be her foster carer, the last in a long line. Up until she came to live with Maz, Rey had been counting down the days until she turned eighteen and could take off on her own. She had a plan that she’d find her family – they have to be out there, all the paper trails of the world must lead somewhere – and she has a cheap lined notebook that used to serve as a calendar. Tally marks criss-cross every page, marking out days and months and years.

She doesn’t write in it any more, though. The day she came to live with Maz Kanata, she was put to work doing odd jobs in the shop, getting _paid_ to stand there behind the counter breathing in the scent of a thousand flowers. Maz had been bemused but pleased with her enthusiasm. When Rey turned eighteen, she was offered the job full-time, plus her room upstairs for as long as she wants it. Maz is a genius with plants but she isn’t getting any younger. And she’s been so kind. Rey still plans on finding her family, she’s put in applications to a dozen agencies for information, but there’s no harm in staying here a while.

Takodana Flowers is downstairs from a strip of other small businesses, including the ‘antiques’ place run by Maz’s friend Han (it’s a junk shop, but a good one) and the café next door run by Maz’s boyfriend Chewie, who is huge and hairy and can make a mean herbal smoothie. In this little community, everyone knows everyone else, and they keep an eye out for each other. It’s weird, but nice.

So when Rey hears a car having obvious engine troubles in the street outside, she knows Maz won’t mind her ducking out quickly to lend a hand. The car is a Rover Mini, orange with a white roof, the cutest of its type Rey has ever seen. The owner’s not half-bad either: a big, broad-shouldered young man in a brown leather jacket who looks up at Rey’s offer of ‘need some help?’ like she’s the bringer of divine guidance.

“Can you fix it?” he asks eagerly. “I don’t know what I did. This is my boyfriend’s car, it’s his baby, I can’t go home and tell him I messed it up.”

Not single, then. Ah well, win some, lose some. Rey pops the hood and pokes around. She fixes the problem in about ten minutes, with Cute Car Guy hovering anxiously behind her, and this time the Rover starts up with a happy little rumble.

“You are amazing,” the guy says fervently, pumping Rey’s hand up and down. “I owe you one. What’s your name? I’m Finn. The car’s called BB. I think it likes you.”

Rey grins. She likes people who name their cars. “I’m Rey. Glad to meet you, but I have to go, I’m supposed to be selling flowers right now.”

“Flowers?” Finn looks around and sees the shop sign. “Oh. Okay. I want to buy some flowers.”

Takodana Flowers doesn’t _just_ sell flowers. For the boyfriend with great taste in cars, Finn gets a little succulent garden in an old fishbowl – Maz specialises in succulents, and gets very creative with them – but once he’s paid for that, Finn looks around and sees the herb wreaths that Maz stocks for weddings and bridal showers. The dried leaves are fragrant, woven together with colourful ribbons. Finn buys one in white and yellow and gives it to Rey with an irresistibly bashful smile.

“To say thanks,” he says.

It’s such a sweet gesture, Rey doesn’t know quite what to do with it. She hasn’t known a lot of sweet people. She takes the wreath and puts it uncertainly on her head, and Finn beams at her.

“See you around, Rey,” he says before he leaves, and she watches through the shop window as BB trundles off down the street. She wonders if he means that. People say nice things all the time without meaning them, so probably she won’t see him again.

“Don’t be so hasty,” Maz chides over dinner that night. She’s so tiny that she has to use a stepping stool to get around her own kitchen, but she’s an amazing cook and likes feeding people, the more eaters the better – her parties are legendary. “I’ve lived a long time, my girl, and the one thing I know for sure is you never know what’s going to happen next.”

Rey’s mouth is full, so she just shrugs. She can’t argue with that.

* * *

Two days later, the rusted chimes hung beside the door clink together with the draft of a customer entering, and Rey looks up to see another ridiculously handsome man come into the shop. He has wavy dark hair and an engaging smile, like he’s already convinced they’re going to be good friends. He’s wearing Finn’s leather jacket.

“Hi, I’m Poe,” he says. “I hear you rescued my BB the other day, and I wanted to thank you.”

He holds out his hand and Rey shakes it. So this is Finn’s boyfriend. They are a lot of adorable for one relationship. “I’m Rey,” she tells him, though she expects he already knows that.

“This place is gorgeous,” he says, turning on the spot to look around. It’s quite dark in here – a green and fragrant gloom, like a shallow forest cavern. Little fountains interspersed among the stands of flowers enhance that impression with the rippling sound of running water and dozens of wind chimes dangle from racks on the ceiling among decorative hanging baskets. Poe’s eye catches on a wrought iron sun strung with lots of little stars and planets that tinkle together as it swings.

“It’s my godmother’s birthday next week,” he says, while Rey gets on a ladder to fetch it down for him. “And I know Leia will love this. Thanks so much, Rey. You have a good day.” That’s usually her line when dealing with customers but he says it better, holding her eyes and smiling as though she’s done him a big favour.

“You’re welcome,” she says, a bit dazed.

Poe comes back on Monday for a bouquet to give with the gift. Finn is with him, dressed up in a suit jacket and a tie patterned with blue stars. They’re going straight on to dinner at Leia’s house and don’t have a lot of time, but consult with Rey on colours and arrangements like they’re deferring to an expert. Given that she’s been helping out at Maz’s flower-arranging classes every Wednesday evening for nearly two years, she supposes that she _is_ sort of an expert. Most people don’t treat her like one, though, and it feels good. Poe leaves happily with a bundle of roses and carnations and Finn says again, as he follows him out the door, “See you around, Rey!”

This time, she’s pretty sure he means it.

* * *

He does mean it.

The next time he come by, it’s to admire the little teacup worlds Maz makes and to chat with Rey. She finds out that Finn used to be a cleaner with a big commercial sanitation service but he left after he saw the corner-cutting they insisted kept them competitive. Now he’s going freelance. Financially, it’s harder, but he’s much happier. “It’s like a ‘hire a hubby’ thing,” he explains to Rey, coming in early one morning to buy daffodils for Poe. “You know, like changing light bulbs for old ladies and mowing lawns as well as mopping floors? Whatever household jobs need doing.”

“Maz would like that,” Rey says, carefully pulling the ribbon around Finn’s posy into a perfect bow. “She hates cleaning and I’m in the shop so much I don’t have time to do everything. I could give her your number, if you like. How much do you charge?”

Finn writes down all his details on a Post-It that Rey sticks to the desk. When Maz comes out from the back room, where she’s spent the morning making more wreaths, Rey offers the note and Maz studies it interestedly from behind her ancient Coke bottle bifocals.

“Hm,” she says at last. “I want to meet this boy.”

The meeting goes well. Maz likes Finn, Finn likes her, and he _loves_ her food. They settle it that he’ll come in a couple of days a week to scrub floors and do the vacuuming, and do a bit of cleaning up in the shop if Rey is busy. She’s used to spending a lot of time alone in the shop, but it’s easy to get used to Finn being there. He talks while he works, telling her stories about his old job. She actually gets frustrated when a customer comes in, interrupting the tale of Kylo Ren: Cleaner’s Worst Nightmare.

“He really turned over his desk?” she asks, once the customer has left. “With everything still on it?”

“Including his lunch,” Finn confirms. He’s wiping windows with neat and efficient strokes, sudsy water trickling down to his elbows as he works. “Salad dressing everywhere. He was _always_ throwing things. And he smoked in his office. He set off the smoke detectors a couple of times.”

“Didn’t he get into trouble?”

“Nope. He was the CEO’s protege, he could do what he wanted and we all just had to put up with it.” Finn sighs. “Man, I’m glad not to be dealing with him any more.”

They drink coffee together in the little sunken courtyard behind the shop. There are shelves of wicker baskets, old watering cans, second-hand teacups and recycled glass jars out here that are all going to be turned into something beautiful someday. There is potential in everything if you think about it from the right angle. Rey tells Finn so when he expresses doubts over a broken saucepan and she proves her point by turning it into a witch’s stewpot of colourful cacti right in front of his eyes, her fingers quick at the familiar work.

“How,” Finn says blankly, holding up the finished work to eye level.

“Hm,” Rey says, not quite satisified. “Give that back. There’s not enough on the left side yet.”

Poe is in the shop a lot too. He comes to see Finn sometimes during lunch breaks, but mostly it’s because literally everyone he knows needs more flowers in their lives and it seems he plans to fix that problem single-handedly.

“For my friend Jessika,” he says, picking out a little hanging basket that Maz has designed to look like a hot air balloon. Orange nasturtiums spill over the edges. “And I should probably get something for my mother, while I’m here. What do you think?”

He always asks Rey what she thinks. Poe is Disney prince sweet, with his burbly little car and perfect hair and his glamorous job as the pilot for a skydiving organisation, there is no point trying to pretend she doesn’t want him to like her, even if she wishes (and she mostly tries not to wish) that she had met Finn first. One day she’s having a smoothie from Chewie’s when he stops by, and he’s so fascinated by the deep gold and cream swirls in her cup that she lets him taste a bit. After that he changes his morning jogging route to pass by the café and grab a drink there most days, waving to Rey as he goes by and often stopping to talk for a few minutes when he sees her opening up the shop. He’d probably help shift the heavy stands if Rey asked, but she doesn’t ask. She likes doing things for herself.

Though she doesn’t say no on the days he buys her a smoothie too.

One morning he comes in looking tired and a bit embarrassed. “What flowers say ‘it’s me, not you’?” he sighs, looking around the shop. Catching Rey’s expression, he hastens to add, “It’s not for Finn!” which only makes things worse. Whatever look Rey gets must be formidable because Poe holds up his hands placatingly and says, “I’m not explaining this properly. You don’t need to avenge Finn’s honour, he was there too. We’re poly, and there was someone…well, we had a date last night, and it didn’t go too well.”

“Oh,” Rey says, deflating, feeling both relieved and another emotion she doesn’t want to look at closely. She helps him pick out a small bouquet that is pretty but impersonal and doesn’t bring up the incident with Finn when she sees him later that day. It’s not her business.

* * *

In the middle of summer, Maz throws one of her epic parties. All the shopkeepers around take part. Chewie brings along a huge barrel of fruit punch and Han – who pretends to be too grumpy for parties but is a secret social butterfly – strings paper lanterns everywhere. Even Luke, the reclusive book-seller on the corner who mostly keeps himself to himself, comes along. He takes off his prosthetic hand for one of Maz’s great-nieces to look at and tells stories about a road-trip he took with Han when they were students that sounds too improbable to be true. When Finn and Poe show up, it’s with a dignified older woman with complicated braids in her hair who immediately goes over to hug Luke and spends the rest of the night flirting with Han.

“They’re married,” Poe tells Rey, when she laughs to him about how smitten Han is.

“Really? But I don’t see her around here.”

“They fight a lot,” Poe admits. “But they always make it up in the end.”

He gets her a cup of punch when he fetches one for Finn, gallant as always, and Finn’s heaped plate is enough for the three of them to snack on for a while. Rey knows she’s the third wheel here, but she doesn’t feel like one. They talk to her as much as they do to each other and for every joke that goes over her head, there’s one that includes her. They sit on a picnic blanket at the edge of the parking lot, Finn in the middle with Poe’s arm around his waist and Rey picking olives off his plate on the other side, watching as Luke good-naturedly agrees to do a few magic tricks. After that, a group of Maz’s friends bring out instruments and there’s music.

“Hey, we should dance!” Poe says at once, getting to his feet. Rey takes the plate off Finn’s lap, planning to finish the food while he’s gone, but Poe is looking at her too, his eyes wide and hopeful. “Do you like dancing?”

“Um,” Rey says. She’s missing something here. “I guess so?”

“Great!” Finn beams and takes her hand, pulling her to her feet. On the makeshift dancefloor, he is enthusiastically uncoordinated, Poe is a flailing mess, and Rey…she’s dancing with both of them, and it works. Somehow, it works.

* * *

The key to being happy, in Rey’s experience, is not to expect too much. Disappointment gets you nowhere. But it’s hard to stay positive when all her requests for information about her family come back to her with bureaucratic jargon a mile long that, translated, means nobody wants to tell her a thing. Maybe she didn’t explain herself properly? Didn’t fill in the right form?

Maybe there’s nobody out there for her to find. Maybe she’s the only one who cares.

It’s not a good day. Maz is out on a date with Chewie – he’s taking her to a fairground to have a go at the dodgems – and there aren’t enough customers to keep Rey’s mind off the latest non-answer lying open on the table upstairs. She tries to cheer herself up by sketching out designs for new succulent gardens on a scrap of paper, thinking of ways to use the carcass of Maz’s giant and now definitively deceased computer. Rey is getting quite invested in the idea of using old circuit boards to make a teeny little walled garden when the door opens and a very tall, very bored-looking woman strolls in with a very tall, very annoyed-looking young man. They don’t strike Rey as a couple, and she doesn’t think they’re here to buy flowers.

“Am I speaking to the employer of Finn Storm?” the man asks. He’s wearing sunglasses indoors, and not in a way that implies he forgot he was wearing them. He’s also wearing a fedora and a black suit with a black shirt. Without waiting for Rey to actually answer – which she wasn’t planning on doing anyway – he whips out a business card from his shirt pocket and holds it under her nose between two fingers. “I’m Kylo Ren of First Order Sanitation, and I feel it is my duty to inform you of the cause for Mr Storm’s termination with the company.”

“He quit,” Rey says.

“That’s what he wants you to think.” Kylo leans forward over the counter, into Rey’s personal space. Behind him, the woman sighs and checks her phone. “It’s come to the attention of CEO Snoke that Mr Storm has been spreading slander and misinformation against First Order and I, for one, will not stand for that kind of disloyalty.”

“He quit,” Rey repeats. “It’s none of your business what he does now.”

“Is that what you think?” Kylo slaps his hand down on the counter. It’s probably meant to look forceful and decisive, but mostly comes off as petty. “Phasma, tell her.”

The woman gives the back of his head an icy look, but steps forward. With her steel-rimmed glasses and helmet bob, she looks imposing in every way Kylo doesn’t. “If Mr Storm does not retract his libelous accusations, First Order intends to begin legal proceedings to resolve this matter.”

Rey folds her arms. “It’s not libelous if it’s true.”

“It’s _not true!_ He’s making it all up!” Kylo yells. Phasma fixes her eyes on the middle distance in a way that would look like embarrassment from someone less put together. Kylo takes a deep breath, visibly calming himself down. “You don’t have to be involved in all this unpleasantness,” he tells Rey, in what he obviously thinks is a conciliatory tone. “He’s obviously a liability.”

“Get out of this shop,” Rey says flatly. She’s just barely holding onto her temper.

Phasma is bright enough to see this tack isn’t working. “We believe Mr Storm may be under the influence of a third party,” she says. “He need only withdraw – ”

“It’s that _pilot_ ,” Kylo interrupts furiously. “This is Poe Dameron’s fault.”

Rey is literally two seconds away from punching him in the face – her fist has balled up under the counter and every admonishment Maz has ever given about picking her fights carefully has gone right up in flames – when the door opens again and Finn himself steps inside. He takes one look at Kylo and Phasma, then his eyes skip past them to Rey, checking she’s okay.

Kylo glares at him. “There you are, coward,” he says and Rey half-expects him to draw a rapier or something. Phasma has to grab his arm to stop him lunging forward. “I suppose you think that you can say whatever you like about the company that trained you and gave you a purpose in life, but your _ungrateful slander_ has not gone unnoticed.”

“You mean your dad told you to stop being a dick,” Finn says, and Rey could kiss him.

Oh. Crap. She really wants to kiss him.

“That man has nothing to do with this!” Kylo shouts. “I’m the personal assistant of CEO Snoke! I don’t need my father’s advice on anything!”

“We’re leaving now,” Phasma says, hauling him towards the door. The glance she gives Finn is withering and he flinches away from it instinctively; Kylo is still yelling threats as Phasma pulls him outside into the parking lot. A car door slams and everything suddenly goes very quiet.

“Are you all right?” Finn asks Rey worriedly. “I didn’t think he’d make such a big deal out of this.”

She resolutely doesn’t look at his mouth. “I’m fine. You should be careful, though.”

“I’ll talk to Poe about it tonight,” Finn sighs. “He’s been saying I should make a formal complaint about working conditions with First Order, maybe he’s right. I just wanted to leave it all behind, you know? Including _her_.”

He jerks his head at the door, obviously referring to Phasma. He’s trying to look calm about it but Rey can see how shaken up he is and takes him out into the courtyard to sit down. “How do you know that guy’s father?” she asks.

“Oh, huh, actually it’s kind of crazy. His dad is Han. As in, Han who runs the junk shop? His name’s not really Kylo Ren, either, he’s Ben Skywalker – that’s Leia’s last name – only he decided that he needs to distance himself from his parents to get ahead in the exciting world of corporate sanitation.” Finn rubs his face. “I am so sorry to have mixed you up in this mess.”

“You didn’t,” Rey says firmly, bumping her shoulder against his. “It’s not your fault. Maz will say the same.”

Maz, when she comes home from her date, says quite a lot more. “Such a brat, that Ben,” she mutters, slamming cupboards on her way around the kitchen. “Always making trouble for Leia. The things he’s said to his uncle! And Han has plenty of flaws, but he’s a good man and a good father.”

Rey knows. Han taught her to drive in his beat-up but beloved Falcon within a few months of her moving here; though she’s known how to fix cars for ages, until then nobody had ever bothered teaching her to drive one. Han is gruff and usually sarcastic, but when she came to live here he took her into his life without a second thought, and so did Chewie.

Rey kind of regrets not punching Kylo in the face.

* * *

Over the next week Kylo Ren calls repeatedly to see if Rey has changed her mind about sacking Finn, like she’s going to agree with him if he says his piece enough times. He stops after Rey gets Chewie to answer the phone; Chewie _roars_ at him, voice so deep that Rey isn’t entirely sure what he’s saying, only that it’s what righteous fury sounds like. Han tells Rey grimly to let _him_ answer if Kylo calls again. He doesn’t.

Finn is quieter after that, though, and Rey is too. She needs to not have this crush any more. Paying too much attention to Finn is how she got stupid hopes up in the first place and it’s not fair to anyone, especially now that crush has gone multi-directional and swept Poe up in its total lack of realism too. To distract herself from the things she can’t fix, Rey focuses on the things she _can_ do. She spends a weekend helping Han fix up the Falcon, hotly debating whether he really needs to keep a tape deck in the 21 st century. “You do know we’re on the _other_ _side_ of the millenium,” is Rey’s argument, but Han won’t hear of installing a more modern sound system. Chewie just gives his rumbling laugh and hands around cold beers when they’re done.

Even with things suddenly a bit weird, Poe doesn’t stop buying flowers. He stays to talk every time he’s in the shop, just as he always has, telling her about his family, his awkward first date with Finn, his job with Skywalking Flights, and all that is interesting, but Rey has talked around a difficult subject enough times to know when someone else is doing it. There’s a searching, uncertain quality to some of his remarks that makes Rey feel like he’s trying to ask a question without outright asking it. She hopes he doesn’t think that she or Maz would ever cave in to Kylo Ren.

Then Poe asks about a special bouquet, and she gets it.

“What would you choose?” he dithers, holding up different bunches and taking thoughtful sniffs from each one. “Do you have a favourite?”

There are two reasons why people go into this kind of indecision over buying a bouquet: they have screwed up spectacularly and know deep down that there’s no flower on earth that can get them out of it, or they are planning to propose. Rey swallows and squares her shoulders. It was ridiculous letting this crush get out of hand – even more stupid to feel wistful as she looks at Poe’s bent head, while he rubs the silky petal of an iceberg rose.

“I wouldn’t want flowers,” she says, since he asked. “They’re pretty, but I like plants that are going to stay alive.” She gestures to the succulent gardens arranged on a stand next to the counter. The newest one is inside the casing of an old toy spaceship Rey found at the tip when she was trawling with Han for car parts. Poe looks at the display thoughtfully, and leaves with the spaceship.

Rey sits down on a stool behind the counter and looks at her hands. She wishes she was not like this. She wishes she could be blasé about other people’s kindness, accepting it for what it is, instead of reading things into it that aren’t there. Finn and Poe are just really nice people. That doesn’t mean she’s a serious part of their lives. She’s the girl who sells them flowers; that’s all.

* * *

She’s closing up later that day when BB rolls into the parking lot and Finn and Poe tumble out. They’re excited and nervous; Rey’s stomach clenches. She manages a small smile.

“Hey, guess what?” Finn bounces over. “I talked to Luke today. Leia’s brother Luke, you know? Turns out he was a big deal lawyer ages ago, before he got sick of it all and took over Dagobah Books. I told him about the lawsuit and he said it’s bullshit.”

Rey’s smile turns real. “That’s great, Finn! So Kylo Ren is off your back?”

“I hope so,” Finn says. He looks at Poe. This isn’t all they came here to say.

Poe, to Rey’s surprise, produces the rocket ship garden. “This is for you,” he says, holding it out. Rey squints at him confusedly. It’s not her birthday. His cheeks go very pink and he goes on, “I don’t know if you’re interested…”

He looks at Finn for support and Finn jumps in. “We really like you,” he says, stepping forward and gently pushing the rocket garden into Rey’s arms. “And we were hoping that maybe you might…go on a date with us sometime? We’re going to get dinner now, actually, we’d love you to come.” Rey just stares at him and he falters a bit.

“You’re asking me out,” she says, just to be sure she is getting all this right. Poe nods. “On a date.”

“If you’re not interested, that’s fine,” Finn says quickly. “Obviously! But we can stay friends, right?” He’s aiming for breezy but it sounds more like nervous babble.

Rey looks down at the garden in her arms. Nobody has given her flowers before. “Oh,” she says softly. She blinks rapidly. “Um. Dinner sounds _great._ ”

She didn’t realise that Poe’s smile had a wattage reserved for special occasions and wow, is that a level of radiant to have unlocked. Finn tries to hug her without squashing the garden but that doesn’t really work so she puts it down and they hug properly. This doesn’t feel real yet. Good things often don’t, at first. But she’s more than willing to be convinced.

* * *

A few months later, she buys a calendar and starts marking off days. She doesn’t intend to forget her first anniversary.


End file.
